MIT: Two severely burned by "strange" substance in river - ho hum. Girl with LEDs - terrorist. [View All]

[arendt]

News item #1:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1029873
Note: the Herald is rabid rightwing tabloid. They didn't go ballistic about this.

Charles River cleanup blast injures five
By O’Ryan Johnson
Friday, September 7, 2007 -
A strange, 8-inch long “taffy-like” substance exploded and severely burned two people after it was fished aboard a Charles River cleanup boat yesterday.

Three Boston EMS workers who had arrived at a boat ramp near the Esplanade to help the injured themselves suffered minor burns and throat irritation from the substance, which emitted noxious fumes.

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News item #2 (some local blog in Cambridge (where MIT is):
http://blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/?p=8742

MIT to pony up for boat cleaning…
September 19th, 2007 by Matt Dunning
…but still hasn’t made any determination about a possible link between the Sept. 6 incident and a not-so-secret annual rite of throwing sodium in the Charles River.

MIT’s newspaper, The Tech, managed to rescue a video of what it claims to be the 2007 “East Campus Drop” from YouTube before it was taken down.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “MIT to pony up for boat cleaning…”

Ed Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Word on the street is that the boat incident occurred several weeks later than the traditional East Campus sodium drop. And it’s not really possible for sodium to survive that long while exposed to the elements. And the East Campus drop happens down by the Longfellow bridge.
But allegedly a fraternity held their own sodium drop immediately before the accident, in the same general area.
This wouldn’t be the first time that a bunch of copycats without the requisite safety precautions ruined things for everybody.

Sally Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
What, exactly, are the “requisite safety precautions” for stealing a chunk of sodium and then tossing it into the river so some kids can watch it explode?

MIT alumna Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I’m sorry, but I don’t think it matters much which fraternity is responsible for this particular incident. In my mind the real issue is the fact that MIT is allowing its fraternity to drop sodium metal into the river in the first place by looking the other way, not so much whether there’s a proven connection to this case. It’s littering and it runs counter to years of clean-up efforts and money spent to restore the ecological health of the Charles River.

Two weeks ago, two people were severely burned by a "strange" substance FLOATING IN THE RIVER, but nobody is worried - its just ANOTHER MIT PRANK. There is no serious investigation. I haven't heard that anyone was caught. I haven't seen any hyperventilating news stories about how biological agents could have been thrown in as easily as a lump of sodium.

But an innocent kid walks into a public place without theatening anyone and winds up in the middle of a political circus.

What a phony bunch of outrage from the MIT administration! What a hopeless overreaction from the Logan cops and the DA. And, what a complete double standard by every media outlet in Boston. Star Simpson gets pilloried for being a bright, happy kid. Isn't that what America says it is fighting this war to preserve?

Not for some people on this board. They tell me that they want our brightest kids to put on their hat and think like an absolute moron, lest they provoke "an incident". Welcome to Brave New World, where all the children of gammas and below were shown beautiful things and then given electirc shocks so that they would learn beauty was not for them.

Anyone on DU who buys into this is enabling the police state. We just got told by the Senate that we can't criticize a general who is a liar, just because he is a general. Now we are told we can't criticize ignorant cops with deadly weapons and no brains. Neither can we criticize a totally hypocritical bunch of corporatists at MIT, nor a grandstanding DA.

I hope the girl gets a good lawyer (someone should put MoveOn on this) and sues their asses off for defamation of character.

arendt